'''John Ellis''': What are we trying to solve? We know that if someone comes in at 2am and doesn't know what Noisebridge is about, it's a good idea to look at the "ask to leave" policy. But if someone is visiting from Germany, we should allow them in. We could make this sound way more excellent.

'''John Ellis''': What are we trying to solve? We know that if someone comes in at 2am and doesn't know what Noisebridge is about, it's a good idea to look at the "ask to leave" policy. But if someone is visiting from Germany, we should allow them in. We could make this sound way more excellent.

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'''Naomi''': I'm willing to work on this text to make it worth changing. This text is trying to ameliorate the problems that the original text created. People thought they had to be invited to Noisebridge to attend at all, even those going to classes. Didn't solve any problems. We have the same problems we had before. We still have to ask people to leave. Types of people who are asked to leave: those who don't care about cultural code, and those who know about it but are too whacked out to behave and need to be yanked out. Text on the page will be read about people who want to know more about Noisebridge.

+

'''Naomi''': I'm willing to work on this text to make it worth changing. This text is trying to ameliorate the problems that the original text created. People thought they had to be invited to Noisebridge to attend at all, even those going to classes. Didn't solve any problems. We have the same problems we had before. We still have to ask people to leave. Types of people who are asked to leave: those who don't care about cultural code, and those who know about it but are too whacked out to behave and need to be yanked out. Text on the wiki will be read about by people who want to know more about Noisebridge and who actually want to follow the cultural code.

Consensus items

What is consensus?

Kevin: consensus is process we use to make decisions at NB. Slow, requires everyone on board before making a decision. If the decision makes you uncomfortable, it's not a good decision and we wouldn't move forward. Involves discussion, prevents minority voices from going unheard. Unique features: item has to be introduced for a week before it can be consensed upon. Chance for everyone to get involved and hear what's going on. Only Members are full participants in consensus process. Other non-full Members can weigh in but cannot block consensus. Members are introduced via consensus as well.

Naomi: Consensus item was passed that you must tag yourself as a Member on the wiki. Shifts responsibilities of secretary onto individuals who by consequence have to display publicly that they are Noisebridge members, which is antithetical to ideals of people who founded the space. They are unhappy about it. Furthermore, 20 or so people did/would never do this and exerted civil disobedience about the rule. Follow edict of "don't give orders you don't expect people to follow" and do away with this policy item. We have a paper binder which fulfills legal requirement of having a member list without making it public to the world.

John Ellis: Detail about consensus item: don't have to use legal/wallet name. But some just don't like to use the wiki. There are some who are known by a name other than their legal ones, e.g. Mr. X. Also forgetting: what's the requirement to remain a member in good standing? Since last week, you have to pay dues.

Deja: Agree with Jarrod - can't identify who is a member by using the binder, can't tell who is banned - have no faces to the names. Might suggest that we take a picture of each member to put a face to the name.

John Ellis: Objection that if someone is sitting and hacking and hasn't been sponsored, it's a stupid technicality that they can be asked to leave despite their status.

Jarrod: It isn't the case about the binder. Secretary needs to make list of Members available to Members, but it doesn't have to be published.

Mike: Open-source route, keep Markdown file and allow pull requests.

Naomi: We have the list. Wiki tokens aren't working out for who is/isn't member. Only point of Membership is responsibility of consensus.

Matt: It's not a matter of membership/associate/guest, your actions dictate excellence or not. Regardless of who you are, if you're asked to leave, it should be taken seriously.

Dan: Anticipating some situation where we'd want to have a member authenticate as such, but not something that should ever come up in the space, if someone's asked to leave, I should not have to see if they're a member of the board. An appropriate alternative to photographs would be a GPG key. Culturally, though, it should not matter what their on-paper status is.

Kevin: No concerns with current consensus item?

John Shutt: Any concerns about current proposal?

John Ellis: Before special events like an election, we should have a list of eligible voters just to check whether someone's on the list (is a member in good standing).

Naomi: I'll email everyone who's a member.

Matt: Last night, a person was in here who someone suspected of already having been banned. A regular was able to confirm that she was banned, and when she brought up that she was a guest of someone, that person was banned too.

Naomi: There are only two members here; do we want to defer or ask the list?

Deja: We know the process, people who are not here, that's too bad.

John Shutt: Do you know of any Members who would have an objection to this?

Jeffrey/Naomi: Nope

Jeffrey: I don't think it's necessary to do anything more than what we're already doing.

John Ellis: Most meetings have had less than 4 Members present at the meeting.

Daniela: Listen to what you feel.

Naomi: I'll mention to the list that we're passing consensus, we can pass even further consensus if anyone wants to change it back.

Naomi: I think the wording is absolutely terrible. It's two paragraphs that have a very muddled sense of audience. The problem is that the main audience for this text is people coming to Noisebridge. It doesn't imply that Noisebridge is welcoming, but that you need to know somebody.

Deja: On one hand, the text itself sounds loose as far as security of the premises. Things go missing. It needs to be inviting, there's a better way to do so. It's up to us as a community living up to saying what we're providing to people. We need greeters or else it's all bogus.

Matt: General consensus is that the re-wording makes the whole feeling of new people coming in a little more exclusive. In other rules it says anybody has the right to ask anybody else to leave. The new rules make it more hierarchical. The original wording is fine. This is positive wording vs. negative wording.

Monad: Would be great to have this simplified. In practice, this is what's already happening.

Jeffrey: Re-read wording. Re-wording isn't any more or less permissive, but it's a bit more clear. We can't have 24/7 greeters.

John Ellis: What are we trying to solve? We know that if someone comes in at 2am and doesn't know what Noisebridge is about, it's a good idea to look at the "ask to leave" policy. But if someone is visiting from Germany, we should allow them in. We could make this sound way more excellent.

Naomi: I'm willing to work on this text to make it worth changing. This text is trying to ameliorate the problems that the original text created. People thought they had to be invited to Noisebridge to attend at all, even those going to classes. Didn't solve any problems. We have the same problems we had before. We still have to ask people to leave. Types of people who are asked to leave: those who don't care about cultural code, and those who know about it but are too whacked out to behave and need to be yanked out. Text on the wiki will be read about by people who want to know more about Noisebridge and who actually want to follow the cultural code.

Jeffrey: You could use Google Drive, or GitHub...

Naomi: We should have a manual for Noisebridge, saying Noisebridge should always be welcoming.

Mike: We need a brochure.

Naomi: It should be posted that anyone can be asked to leave at any time.

Jade: Proposal/consensus item is unnecessary. I do not think we need more hierarchy. Wording doesn't make anything better. I support banning of proposal.

Alma: Basic safety/security. There are some things in the room that could send you to the hospital.

John Shutt: This is a separate discussion.

Mike: As a new person, that new wording was what I saw, and I felt uninvited, but I came and felt welcomed. What about "be excellent to each other"?

Dan: Jumping onto a wave of congealing consensus gravy. Mark this as blocked. For people with chutzpah to use the wiki, take wording off the page and say access policy is a work in progress. Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Some are real good at jumping through hoops, but it's made us less able to control unexcellence. Propose for future consensus item of reworking whole associate membership section - revert it, go back to the way we were.

Deja: I've never gone to the website but I've done brochures before. If this is going out to the public, it should be based around the mission statement, and it's a celebration of the space and a guide for new people, welcoming them to Noisebridge. Should show what we can do and then we can filter people out once they get through the door. People on Internet are going to be upper-crust progressive types anyway. We should look into a formal mission statement; a celebration of Noisebridge.

Monad: For your consideration, a sign saying we welcome everyone, but we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.

Matt: I agree the current wording is exclusionary. With the suggestions everyone's made, I like the looseness of the policy. These aren't rules, these are guidelines and policies. Gets down to the core of "be excellent."

Daniela: Seems like we have a problem with tweakers and others and we've had to ask people to leave. Feels like we're beating around the bush. We should have a zero-tolerance GTFO policy toward hard drugs. Wouldn't be beating around the bush when that's what the real problem is.

Kevin: I wanted to go and hack the language we were just discussing, but the member directory was appalling and too cultural. One person's efforts to translate years of history on the Noisebridge wiki into the GitHub repository. Thought it would be great of Noisebridge to add to affirmations that the Noisebridge bureaucracy repository is the accurate location for the wording. I made my edits to the repository which would make me comfortable to say it's official. Trying to reduce verbosity.

Eliminating "general" file which is redundant.

Boiled down member/associate wordings into more of a bullet-point list of privileges, applications, responsibilities.

Naomi: Keep in mind we need to remove wording about tagging selves on Noisebridge wiki.

Deja: We should have a mission statement.

John Ellis: Two parts: be excellent and hack.

John Shutt: Want to bring this back to talking about the consensus item.

Jeffrey: We need clarification on what this consensus item is about.

Matt: There is some wording that could be changed, nothing more needs to be added or taken away, but just reworded to clarify the spirit of the statement.

Discussion Notes

Noni: How to teach a class at NB?

Jeffrey: Discussed how to host an event at Noisebridge. In addition to emailing, blocking out time on wiki, we also talked about waiting lists, using Facebook/Google+/Meetup, talked about areas in NB to teach class.

Dan: Introduce people to NB, say how to get on waiting list, in addition to instruction, do some discussion time. Be flexible, but be willing to negotiate with others using the space.

Deja: Can set up PA system.

Jeffrey: Talked about how to get in.

Dan: Suggestion for taker of notes: meeting notes reflect that Noisebridge.net's current wording on front page should be taken down.

Jeffrey: It's not on the membership page. (It's only on the consensus history page.)

John Ellis: If we're going to edit the wiki, we should get some sort of soft consensus over it before we make any changes.

Jeffrey: Do it now. Go onto the wiki and make edits.

Corey: Corey read off membership page.

Jeffrey: Wording on the actualy Noisebridge page is actually very permissive. Blocked wording change was only on consensus items history page.

Dan: Check in after the meeting and let's set up a general time to have a conversation.

John Shutt: Any confusion about where to bring up certain items for discussion?

Naomi: Some talk of replacing member shelves with lockers. If we're ready, with a truck, we could take care of some deals.

Monad: I have a trailer.

Matt: I'm a craigslist free ad junkie.

Daniela: For launch party I'm looking for computer screens and computers showing Arduino inventions around the world.

Naomi: Post to the list. I have some laptops you could use.

Daniela: Still working out the details.

John Shutt: Anything else to discuss, any other announcements? Meeting adjourned at 8:59.